ABSTRACT
Proteins represent a major element of naturally occurring or industrially manufactured foams. This chapter describes foaming properties of proteins having limited content of secondary structures and no covalent bounds, the so-called random coil proteins which behave closely to low molecular weight surfactants or block copolymers. It focuses on globular proteins, with special emphasis on "traditionally used" whey, egg white, and soy—as a model of plant—proteins. The most commonly used globular proteins in foams are whey proteins and egg white proteins, and to a lesser extent, soy proteins. Hydrophobins are small globular proteins which are found in several species of filamentous fungi such as Agaricus bisporus, Trichoderma reesei or Neurospora crassa. Protein aggregates can be obtained by several ways, but the most common one is to heat a dispersion of native proteins above their denaturation temperature in order to promote their three dimensional aggregation.
